236 OUR AROTIC PROVIlSrCE. 



under the control and intluence of the Russians, they have adopted 

 many Slavic customs, such as giving birthday-dinners, naming 

 their children, etc. They are remarkably attached to their church, 

 and no other form of religion could be better adapted or have a 

 firmer hold ujDon the sensibilities of the j^eople. Their inherent 

 chastity and sobriety cannot be commended. They have long since 

 thrown away the uncouth garments of Russian rule — those shaggy 

 dog-skin caps, with coats half seal and half sea-lion- — for a complete 

 outfit, cap-d-pie, such as our own people buy in any furnishing 

 house, the same boots, socks, underclothing, and clothing, with 

 ulsters and ulsterettes ; but the violence of the wind prevents their 

 selecting the hats of our fashion and sporting fraternity. As for 

 the women, they, too, have kej)t pace and even advanced to the 

 level of the men, for in these lower races there is usually more vanity 

 displayed by the masculine element than the feminine, according 

 to my observation. In other words, I have noticed a greater desire 

 among the young men than among the young women of savage and 

 semi-civilized peoj^le to be gaily dressed, and to look fine ; but the 

 visits of the wives of our treasury officials and the company's agents 

 to these islands during the last ten years, bringing with them a full 

 outfit, as ladies always do, of everything under the sun that women 

 want to weai", has given the native female mind an undue expansion 

 up there and stimulated it to imwonted activit}'. They watch the 

 cut of the garments and borroAV the patterns, and some of them are 

 very expert dressmakers to-day. When the Russians controlled 

 affairs, the women were the hewers of drift-wood and the draw- 

 ers of water. At St. Paul there was no well of drinking-fluid 

 about the village, nor within half a mile of the village. There was 

 no drinking-water unless it was caught in reservoirs, and the cis- 

 tern-water, owing to those particles of seal-fat soot which fall upon 

 the roofs of the houses, is rendered undrinkable, so that the supply 

 for the town imtil quite recently used to be carried by women from 

 two little lakes at the head of the lagoon, a mile and a half as the 



George Simpson, speaking of the subject when in Sitka, April, 1842, says: 

 '• Some reformation certainly was wanted in this respect, for of all the 

 drunken as well as of all the dirty places that I had visited, New Archangel 

 (Sitka) was the worst. On the holidays in particular, of which, Sundays in- 

 cluded, there are one hundred and sixty-five in the year, men, women, and 

 even children were to be seen staggering about in all directions." — Simpson: 

 Journey Around tlie World, 1841-43, p. 88. 



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